It's amazing how much the way music is "consumed" has changed. Most of us used to listen to the radio and watch MTV when GN'R released Appetite. We would get records from a store, record club or maybe a mail order catalogue. If you couldn't afford to buy a single, you'd tape it off the radio.
Fast forward to the early 2000s. Now you could download any track you wanted and get a digital copy of it for free. No more taping off the radio or borrowing your friend's CD/LP to copy that. Until people started buying tracks for $0.99 on iTunes.
And now. Streaming and songs catered to the Tik Tok crowd where songs are basically made to fit in a video clip posted on social media....
If you look at the people who buy tickets to go see GN'R. I wonder how many of them actually buys physical records. Of any artist.
/jarmo
Fast forward to the early 2000s. Now you could download any track you wanted and get a digital copy of it for free. No more taping off the radio or borrowing your friend's CD/LP to copy that. Until people started buying tracks for $0.99 on iTunes.
And now. Streaming and songs catered to the Tik Tok crowd where songs are basically made to fit in a video clip posted on social media....
If you look at the people who buy tickets to go see GN'R. I wonder how many of them actually buys physical records. Of any artist.
/jarmo
I'm gonna sound like the old guy that I am, but damn those were the days! The countdown to a new video (which often meant a new song if you didn't own the cassette or album); the rumors that took longer to verify since there was no internet; the radio stations that would say something like . . . "Tune in at 5 p.m. today for a major concert announcement." (the then-96 Rock in Atlanta did that in the 80s).
In regards to your last question, my guess is that if you look around at the crowd, you will see a mix that can be determined by age. Those my age might buy the hardcopies and the younger crowd might be more into streaming - or albums, since they're making a comeback (even the younger folks are jumping onboard). Oddly enough, I'm a spotify guy now but that's only because - when I got a new car about three or four years ago - it didn't come with a CD player. If it did, I'd still buy them. Of course, I'm pretty much stereotyping here and could be completely off.
But I wanted to reply because your comment created an enjoyable sense of nostalgia that I'm glad I was able to partake in. I will admit, however, I did not enjoy camping out for concert tickets or trying to call in and buy them over the phone and getting a constant busy signal. However, because it was the musical hardcopies making the bands money, the tickets were cheaper. That I do miss!